AND so, Hampden it is. The SFA have their stadium, but if they aren’t careful, they may end up like the dog that caught the car. Now that the chase is over, what do they do with it now?

There seems to be a strong headwind gathering behind the idea of replicating the remodelling work that Stuttgart undertook to their Mercedes-Benz Arena around seven years ago. So much so that SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell even mentioned looking into the possibility as he announced the purchase of the national stadium from Queen’s Park on Tuesday.

It is easy to see why it is an appealing notion. The similarities between the stadiums are striking.

The matchday experience in Stuttgart used to suffer due to the space behind the goals caused by the old running track around the pitch. The views and the atmosphere were badly affected by the vast expanses at either end between the stands and the pitch, a problem that will be all too familiar to those of you who have viewed a match from behind the goal at Hampden.

The solution? Both ends were demolished, the pitch was lowered, and two new stands with steep banks of seats (and safe standing at one end) were built in their place just yards from the byline.

The result? A marked improvement in the matchday experience, with the atmosphere and sight-lines for spectators improved immeasurably.

The problem? If we are going to replicate that refurbishment at Hampden, simply, is the cost.

I spoke to Eberhard Becker, the architect who designed the rebuild at Stuttgart during the week, and while he was positive about the impact that transferring his design from Germany to Scotland would have on Hampden Park, he also laid bare the cost of such an undertaking.

When the Mercedes-Benz Arena was completed in 2011, the final bill came in at around 80 million Euros. That money was out up by a combination of the club itself and the city of Stuttgart. In his estimation, building costs these days would see that figure rise by around 15-20%.

If a similar arrangement was to come up with enough money to carry out the same work at Hampden, then it looks as though the city of Glasgow would be left to foot a hefty portion of the bill.

Given that negotiations between the SFA and Queen’s Park over the purchase of Hampden were at a standstill until Baron Willie Haughey and Sir Tom Hunter dug deep to allow the governing body to fork out the princely asking price of £5million, that would suggest that the SFA’s pockets aren’t anywhere near deep enough to get the wheels in motion.

Politically, it may be a difficult sell for politicians, whether they come from the local, Scottish or UK government, to sell the idea of ploughing a hefty chunk of taxpayer’s cash into redeveloping a stadium at a time when people are queuing up at foodbanks. Particularly as just 20 years ago, the association they would again be investing their cash in made such a pig’s ear of it the last time they trusted them with taxpayer’s money.

For the SFA, the challenge now is to persuade potential sources of funding, both private and public, that their investment would not be peed up the wall like a Hampden punter relieving himself of his carry oot on the terraces back in the old days.

The attachment to Hampden for supporters is almost entirely nostalgic, but for a whole generation of fans, the old bowl is associated with little more than failure and the soulless, overpriced atmosphere-vacuums that far too many Scotland internationals have become.

The SFA have to act now to ensure that when the old guard die out and those memories of Hampden’s glory days fade out with them, that there is a whole new reason for generations of Scots to come to fall in love with the place all over again.

If they aren’t going to grasp the thistle and drag Hampden into the 21st century, then perhaps they should have put the old girl out of her misery when they had the chance.